


Grievances

by BlueNeutrino



Series: Heart of a Witcher [5]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Blindness, Gen, Heartbeats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 10:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14186535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueNeutrino/pseuds/BlueNeutrino
Summary: Philippa had never understood Yennefer’s fascination with Geralt. Everything about him—his face, his voice, his personality, even his damn heartbeat annoys her. And then she’s blinded in the dungeons of Loc Muinne, and suddenly that heartbeat is what she’s depending on as she looks for a way out.





	Grievances

**Author's Note:**

> So this is set towards the end of Witcher 2 in the dungeons in Loc Muinne. This scene definitely happens on Iorveth’s path. I don’t know about Roche’s, but Philippa ends up blind one way or another. I’m also not entirely sure whether Philippa even knows Yennefer is alive or not, but given her contacts in Nilfgaard, it seems likely.

Philippa had never understood Yennefer’s fascination with him.

Granted, she doesn’t understand the fascination women have with just about any man, but Geralt she’s always found particularly repellent. It’s been barely a few minutes since they brought him into the cell adjacent to hers, and after the initial surprise of it, already she’s had enough of him before he’s even said a word.

She’d _almost_ understand the appeal of his face, if he didn’t wear that constant scowl and look perpetually sickly from decoctions as well as his natural complexion. In theory, she even understands the appeal of his body, except there are plenty of men out there with just as athletic and well-maintained physiques without the scars or the sour disposition to go with it.

As to his other attributes, he’s of decidedly mediocre intellect and his personality is best described by the four S’s of sullen, sarcastic, stubborn, and standoffish. His voice irritates her with that constant rasping mumble, and she just wants to snap at him to take a proper breath and stop speaking from his throat.

Even his heartbeat is fucking annoying.

It’s not a common skill for mages to hear the heartbeats of those around them without deliberately training that ability, but Geralt’s heart is especially loud. It doesn’t interest her the way it does Yennefer—it’s a mutated heart with a slightly altered beat, nothing remarkable about it—but damn, if she doesn’t sometimes wish she could plunge her hand into his chest and squeeze tightly just to shut it up.

In the absence of any other ambient noise in the cells, it’s deafening. Finally, she yells at him to get over here so they can talk just to break the silence.

She can still hear that infuriating thumping when Radovid returns not long after. Hears it quicken when he gives the order to put out her eyes and she has just long enough to wonder if it’s doing that for her, then all she hears is her own screaming as her world turns black.

That accursed beating is still there after, once she’s been left lying blinded in the dirt. She almost thinks it won’t be there for much longer when she hears the Nilfgaardians come back, but it’s Geralt of Rivia, and it doesn’t surprise her when he kills the guards and incapacitates the ambassador.

Then, finally, he gets her out of here. Several minutes too fucking late.

That heartbeat becomes what she relies upon, and she hates it. With magic, she’s hardly helpless without her sight, yet all the same she hates how she’s stumbling in the dark, relying on Geralt’s voice or his rough grip on her arm to direct her. When he’s still, not saying a word, all she has is that heartbeat. Once too loud for comfort and now not loud enough.

Please don’t let this be permanent. She can’t believe she actually wants Geralt near just so that she has a constant sound to focus on, and she can’t bear the thought of being that pathetic forever. She won’t still be blind when she transforms, will she? As an owl, she’d enjoyed eyesight twenty times as sharp as that of a human. Please don’t let her have lost that…

Instead of panicking, to her utter surprise and disgust she finds herself focusing on the sound of Geralt’s heart to ground herself. It’s slow and steady and dependable, with an indescribable richness to the tone she’s never noticed before, quite unlike any heart she’s ever heard. And it’s there, guiding her, when she’s lost in a sea of confusion from other sounds she can’t yet make sense of.

Philippa thinks she begins to understand what Yennefer liked about it so much.

She hates that, too.


End file.
